


Slav has Seen Some Shit

by Megaeevee



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blood and Gore, Explosions, Gen, I love him, Infrequent Updates, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slav is such a little shit, cannon compliant as of S2, i cant believe im going to write a fic about slav being a badass, mild probably, nobody can convince me that slav hasn't Seen Some Shit, probably violence in later chapters, the slav backstory that no one asked for
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-08-07
Packaged: 2018-11-12 13:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11162463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megaeevee/pseuds/Megaeevee
Summary: Slav has lived a long life. It wasn't always a good one, but at least he survived. He's seen things that nobody should see, and done things that nobody should have to do... but he's still here after all of it. And he may not seem like it, but Slav is a fighter. He made it, despite there being too many realities in which he didn't.





	1. Chapter 1

“Sir, I found these two stealing from one of the supply trucks.” The voice is gruff but muffled by a helmet covering the mouth.

“Can't have that, can we? Put them on one of the ships.”

“No! Please, we just wanted to eat -”

His mother's voice is cut off by the sound of metal hitting flesh and then his father's growling. The sound of an impact and then a body hitting the snow. Somebody yelling 'shoot him'. Slav clings tightly to his mother's back and wants to poke his head out from under the fur cloak but she jerks forward before being pulled back. And, finally, a blaster shot. Slav's mother starts to wail and they are moving now. 

His mother is letting out distressed chirps and Slav wonders if that means they won't make it home tonight, after all. He hears an odd sound and suddenly the air has changed and it is far too warm. Outside, he was cosy under the cloak but now it stifles him. He thinks they may be in a cave. 

There are many voices all around – he hears one above the rest talking about needing 'shots' now. Slav's mother growls a little when she hears this. He wonders where she is going – these voices do not sound like them. She is growling constantly now, a comforting rumble that Slav clings to.

They stop and the cloak is ripped away. Slav blinks in the sudden unnatural light and his mother shrieks. Before he can react big hands are they hands?have grabbed him and he is being whisked away. Behind him, the noise level has surged.

Slav hears his mother calling for him but he is still reeling. This place doesn't look like any cave he has ever known – the walls and floor are perfectly smooth. The purple lights are vaguely terrifying in ways he cannot yet comprehend. 

Then, he looks up and starts to scream for her, or father, or anyone from the pack to save him. The creature that carries him is huge and covered head to to toe in a thick armour. The helmet obscures its head and its blank face frightens Slav. He tries to twist free, to go to his mother, who's faint cries are only just able to be heard, but the thing keeps him effortlessly in one hand. 

He will never see her again. 

The room he is thrown into would be tiny if he were fully grown. He hits the floor painfully and makes a high pitched noise of pain but the door has already been slammed shut. He curls up in the corner and waits for his parents to come and get him, keening for someone to pick him up. The door remains firmly shut.

Eventually, the room starts to rumble like a great beast and Slav lays still, afraid he is going to be eaten. He hopes that someone comes soon.

\--

When the rumbling has stopped, he is brought outside. The creature that carries him has a face this time, which only serves to make it more frightening. The teeth are predator's teeth, like the animals from the tall grass - the ones that father warns him are dangerous. 

It is far too warm and there is nothing he can do about it. Slav hates it here already – he just wants to go home. He is silent as he is carried to a building that is similar in design to the one that have been cropping up at home. He looks back and is surprised to see, not a great beast or a cave, but something like a building. Do they all look like that inside?

They go in and it is immediately cooler but there are also more of those creatures. However, to the right there is a line of beings, the likes of which Slav has never seen before. They are all different, from him and each other, but they are all being given the same pile of fabric, from the purple one behind a desk and protective mesh. The one holding Slav reaches the counter after the last being has disappeared and the desk creature has gone in among shelves of purple cloth. 

He is dumped without ceremony on the hard surface and looks up fearfully. 

“Last one.”

The other beast jerks in surprise, turning and saluting quickly before peering down at Slav. He looks back up at these... aliens. (His father calls them aliens, he remembers.) This one appears smaller and marginally friendlier, though it still has those teeth, which doesn't comfort young Slav at all. 

“But, captain... it's tiny! Surely just a child!”

“You have children here, don't you? The prisoners still breed, don't they?”

“Not so much any more, captain. You see, there's a bit of an epidemic – Ah, but, yes of course, sir, we can take him.”

The smaller one studies Slav one more time, sizing him up, before bustling over to the shelves where piles of the same material is stored. The captain leans casually on the counter and call to the other.

“Useless little thing, isn't it?” He says, poking at Slav. Slav squeaks and curls up tighter. “I would have shot it. Commander Morvok has a soft spot for children it seems.”

“Did you hear about his son, captain?” Calls the other from out of sight. “His son was stationed on that planet, you know, with the pathetic little furred things? Well, he had a child with one. Can you believe it, sir? With one of those!”

“No, I didn't hear. What happened?” The captain now has his full attention on the voice from between the shelves.

“Well, his son is obviously in disgrace now, but Commander Morvok took the little bastard in and is planning on raising it. He even named it after himself,” says the desk attendant as it returns with a bundle in its claws. 

“With that glaring weakness, he'll be cut down. Good riddance, I say. Time we got a proper Commander around here.” It lets out an irritated huff, before heaving itself upright. “I'll leave this to you. Vrepit sa.”

“Vrepit sa,” the other says and watches the captain leave. Then it squints down at Slav and says, “well, little one, let's get you sorted out.”

\--

As soon as Slav's little feet hit the ground, he is running. Several aliens make a grab for him, some purple and some not, but he easily dodges their clumsy hands. He has to find his parents. The aliens have brought him to some sort of shabby little town. All the creatures here are different but they all wear the same uniform. Slav has one as well.

As he runs, Slav thinks that this place is also having a famine – the beings are thin and many look ill. There is a listlessness to them all and he decides there must have been a war because they are all injured and scarred. Very few look up as he passes. He sees no children. 

Slav runs between poorly constructed lean-tos and barely standing buildings. This place is too small to be town but he still cannot find his family. He would settle for a stranger of the same species right now. 

He slows to a stop and collapses against a crumbling wall, curling in on himself in hunger. It is not an unfamiliar feeling to him. Slav has a brief pang of regret for running away – perhaps those aliens would have fed him. He looks around and sees that the buildings have a plan and structure to them, where there must once have been streets of a small village, but now hastily made shelters have sprung up everywhere.

This place is nothing like Slav has ever seen before – it always snowed at home.

Home. Slav starts sniffling. None of these creatures even look at him. 

Wait. There is one across the street that only has three limbs, seven less than Slav, but looks threatening all the same. It perches in the door-less doorway of a building and Slav thinks it might be staring at him, but its body is only scales and he can't tell where its eyes are. 

He is staring at the creature, drawing his legs up under him to bolt, when his vision is blocked by fur. He startles, shrinking back against the wall, and for a split second he imagines mother, before realizing that it is not the same colour. He is beginning to think that she isn't here.

The being in front of him has shaggy pale yellow fur, walks on all four limbs, and has several bald patches with healing injuries, as do all the furred aliens at this camp. It leans down to sniff a Slav, considering, before licking him with a rough tongue. Slav is frozen as it lets out a rumbling sound.   
It waits, then makes the sound again. 

Slav thinks it wants a reply. He stares at it – it is built like an animal but the way it is looking at him, he can see intelligence. He hesitantly chirps and then squeaks in alarm when the alien's head suddenly whips around. It growls at the scaly creature, who had been advancing. The thing makes a strangled hiss as it scuttles away. 

Slav looks up at the yellow being. They saved him and – yes, here is kindness in their gaze. They watch the creature for a moment longer then lowers their head back to Slav. He doesn't flinch when he feels teeth at his back nor when he is lifted off the ground. They start to walk at a lumbering pace through the camp.

This being will help him find his family, surely.


	2. Chapter 2

Slav knew that he knew a lot. He knew how to read, knew how to find things in the Galra databases, could handle numbers better than the average soldier, and he knew how the machines worked. 

Obviously, there were Galra mechanics employed at the camp and they were fine for the everyday things (and, occasionally, they would get someone in from a different species, but they were always loan-only), but Slav was something else. It wasn't just technical subjects either – he excelled at biology and chemistry as well. Of course, Slav had to hide it because the Galra could never know how he came to understand these things. 

Currently, he was being marched to one of the 'factories' at camp. A Galra guard had his hand on Slav's shoulder, striding along without taking into consideration Slav's shorter legs. Brutes, Slav thought, but what else can you expect from a military culture? They kicked up dust with every step. Slav reached up to adjust his collar, trying alleviate the constant overbearing heat. The Galra didn't mind it and neither did most other species, but Slav was always too warm. 

Before he had been dragged away, he had been working in the control building – in fact, it was the only real building in the whole camp, if you didn't count the crumbling constructions in the living area. It was the only place with air conditioning, something which caused short temper among the guards and for which Slav was eternally grateful. He was the only worker allowed inside on a regular basis, for maintenance on the computers.

And now they came upon the factory. No more than a huge tent without sides, it allowed the hot air to flow freely. This particular factory was for spinning the thread harvested and made at the camp. This was Slav's tent, the one he had worked in.

The Galra of course had luxury machinery available to them, but it was quicker and more cost efficient to have slaves work with out-of-date machinery, even doing some by hand, than it was to run those machines on an industrial scale. In keeping with the theme of producing as much as possible as quickly as possible, the slaves were packed so tightly that the ones that had elbows were constantly bumping them. They worked sunrise to sunset, until their fingers literally bled.

The symmetry of the workers toiling away in neat rows helped to make Slav less anxious. He stared straight ahead, focused on his destination, so that he would not think of the very real dangers posed here. Like fires, collapsing machinery, working machinery - 

He was lead to a generator at one end of the factory that had completely stopped working. There was little chance of this disrupting work at the camp, as the backup generator was fully online – but that wouldn't last long. Generators were supposed to supply power to several factories at once but the backups were only designed to last a number of hours. They were huge hulking machines, stretching far up to the roof of the tent and just as wide. Slav had a sinking feeling he would be getting inside this one before the day was out.

He was pushed in front of the machine, as several Galra guards stood milling about. Normally there would just be sentries assigned to protect a specific place, with Galra patrolling through the tents. They didn't like to stand in one place all day, due to the heat – bad news for Slav because these guys looked like they had been here a while. 

Wiping sweat from his brow, he got to work. He thought he knew what the problem was already, just based off the parameters given, but the solution was to dangerously crawl inside the generator, get it started, and then crawl back out through the moving parts, without getting killed. 

He tried to put it off for as long as possible, tinkering with various parts on the outside of the generator, double checking all of the readings. But there was only so much fidgeting you could do before people realised you were wasting time. The guards began to show signs of impatience, baking in the heat. Slav had to face in inevitable – he would have to get inside the machine. 

He really really didn't want to. The odds of him making it out alive were already slim, never mind him making it out in one piece. 

The Galra threatened him with their guns but Slav refused to budge. There was exactly 0% chance that they would shoot him. He was more concerned with the possibility that he would get crushed. Or burned. Or trapped. He felt like his chances wouldn't be so bad if those rivets weren't just slightly off on one side or, ideally, if the guards would allow him to rearrange them in the perfect order. 

Guards who knew Slav knew that gestures alone never worked. If Slav had his mind set on something, he would need extra encouragement to change it. The one who had escorted him in stepped closer, unfurling his whip. This was not an idle threat. Slav figured it was get going or acquire several open wounds with high chance of infection. 

There was a vent on the machine that gave access to what was jokingly called 'the maintenance tunnel'. He crawled inside. It was so hot, warmer than the hottest days in summer, and Slav could barely breathe. His hands stung from the blistering metal.

It would be a tight fit for someone less bendy than Slav but he easily wriggled along at the bottom of this instrumental apparatus. Sabotage had never crossed his mind, after being accused of it when he was younger. As a child he had worked in this factory, his many hands giving him an advantage in spinning thread, and the Galra were delighted to put him to work.

But during those early years he discovered an even more useful talent; Slav observed and fiddled and figured out how to fix his spinning machine – the one that made the funny noise and used to get stuck. Nobody had ever taught him but he became adept at teaching himself (it wasn't their fault; no one had ever taught them either). 

He inched along under the main motor of the generator. He had to fold his other arms underneath himself because there was literally no room to manoeuvrer them. Before Slav had come along, the Galra used to send the children into this part of the machine. Slav liked to think he had made life better for some people in his time, despite having no power to actually change anything.

His promotion came when, during an inspection, Commander Morvok had caught a young Slav messing with his station. Morvok had walked up the aisle, escorted by an entourage of guards, while Slav had the side of it open, shoving the tricky bits backs into place. The head guard accused him of sabotaging it and was prepared to drag him off for punishment. But the Commander, a giant standing easily above his comrades, must have recognised Slav's age. He listened and told Slav that he was 'bright'. His promotion was effective immediately. 

Slav had a lot of mixed feelings about the Commander but the man did seem to have at least a grain of honour. Although, now Slav was here, struggling for limited air in the tiny space that housed to vital wiring of the generator. He was keenly aware that he was on a timer but couldn't resist having to stop and adjust some machinery minutely. Now his chances of escaping had risen by 2.99%! he came to the end where the crawlspace stopped. A gap above Slav's head gave access to the rest of the machine but his objective lay right here.

He ran his fingers along the wall in front of him, still lying on this stomach, until he found the grooves. He pried the panel off with his fingernails, exposing the circuits. Everything looked to be in order, no fried wires or loose ends. Slav scanned it thoroughly then steepled his fingers. The most likely scenario had not happened so the next most logical probability... He looked up, craning his neck to see past metal pipes and vales. 

It was not as bad as Slav had feared. Something had come loose, near the top. It wasn't even a major piece of equipment but it facilitated some of the most basic movements of the machine. Really, the mechanics should have been able to figure that out. Far below his own skill level, he thought. 

The trouble now was getting up there. He would have to squeeze himself through some extremely tight cracks, not to mention the unstable footing. And then when he had gotten the gear back into place the generator would start working again.

Slav ran the numbers. The odds of him making it out of here alive were... not good. Never mind without losing a limb or worse. He shifted, the metal starting to burn even through his uniform. 

Going back without fixing the machine was not an option. He would have to brave it. 

He painstakingly rolled himself onto his back and reached up to grab a pipe with his second pair of hands and hoisted himself up. The angle was awkward, having to also drag the rest of his body from corridor. The hot metal hurt his hands and as soon as Slav had his feet on the pipe he had to let go, quickly scrambling to hold onto a ledge at waist height. 

Once he had conquered the first pipe though, the rest was easy. Slav had little difficulty navigating the tight spaces, alternating hands as he pulled himself up. His species must have been climbers, he thought. Climbing and a preference for cold weather.

The repair wasn't even challenging! Slav had it finished in less than three minutes. 

He had only a moment of satisfaction because as soon as the gear was slotted back into place, the engine rumbled back online. The noise was like a big animal, at once familiar like a forgotten childhood memory and dangerous like a monster as it stalks its prey. Except this was no nightmare predator hunting him in some imaginary plain. This was an immediate danger, one that Slav had grown up with – he had been around this machinery since before he could remember and he knew exactly what it would do to him if he was caught. 

Perched as he was on two small gears, the only way to go was down. When the gears started to turn, drawing his feet closer together, he was forced to jump for a thick pipe. He managed to catch it with his middle hands and used the top and bottom pairs to pull himself up. The generator was going to get hotter now that it was in motion. If Slav didn't get out of there within 4.33 minutes, his chances of getting a serious burn went up 78%. 

He let go of the pipe and dropped just as a metal joint connecting two wheels stabbed the air where his head had been. 

Slav was in the air for a split second before he caught himself, swinging his body up as boiling hot steam erupted below him. Then he was able to get his feet on a small metal ledge that he used to launch himself across and down, over cogwheels that threatened to catch him and crush him. 

Slav hung from the edge of a rotating cog. The generator was rapidly heating up. Some of Slav's hands would definitely be out of commission for a while, as what had at first been pretty uncomfortable turned into downright painful turned into outright agony. It was hard to hang on.  
By the time he was moving over the pipe he had originally used to clamber up, he was crying from the pain. Then he let go and dropped straight down into the crawlspace. He took a moment to cradle his first set of hands before he was tucking them away. As the air got hotter it became harder and harder to breathe and the hot air getting trapped in the passage had Slav almost choking. Would he be able to get enough air to make it out?

Slav didn't have time for calculations – he knew that but he couldn't help it. He could hold his breath for 1.42 minutes. Would that be enough to carry him to the end? The machine was only going to get hotter as he struggled in tight space. But, given the speed that he had gotten in and factoring in the added desperation of the moment, he thought he could make it.

He took a deep breath and plunged in. He was squeezed in at all sides, his first (and best) hands were useless and his body burned at all the points that touched metal. He had failed to factor in his missing hands. His lungs ached. He kept his eyes on the square of light as he wriggled forward. That square meant life; he just had to get to it.

Recklessly he thrust himself towards freedom. The square grew. His movements became erratic with panic as his lungs started to burn. How long had it been? Slav felt his mind straying back to the uneven formation of guards; if had arranged them as he had wanted, would he have been able to get out faster? 

It didn't matter because he was falling out of the duct, landing on his back and gasping for air. His body stung where it had been burned, especially the palms of his hands and soles of his feet. The Galra around him were making pleased noises. 

He was only permitted to lay there for 13 seconds before his escort was poking him with his gun and telling Slav it was time to get up. Well. 

Back to the daily grind, he supposed.


End file.
